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Pud got a squishy ball for Christmas that when you squeeze it, it bulges out and is full of plastic cockroaches. It really freaked him out. When he saw what it was, he dropped it and screamed and has refused to touch it again.

Today, he was arguing with me over eating his grapes. He finally told me that he didn't want to eat them because he was scared they had cockroaches in them. Actually, he didn't say "cockroaches", he picked up a page that goes in his Wildlife Explorer book (with a binder clip, he wouldn't even touch the page) that was about cockroaches and showed me what he was scared would be in them. Then, he refused to brush his teeth because he was afraid the toothpaste had cockroaches in it.

So, is this an overexcitability/over-imagination/sensitivity thing or is this a "manipulate mom" thing?

I even ate some of the grapes to show him and he refused to even touch them.

I don't recall his age, but if he is pretty young I would venture a guess that it is the first one. But if there are never cockroaches in cake or ice cream, that would make me wonder as well...lol It's hard to say. My DS has had a few strange phobias that he outgrew, mostly as a toddler/infant. There was a toy he was deathly afraid of, then there was the very quite cricket where he loved until 10 months, then he became terrified of it for about a year. And he was scared of the Oh, David books...but then we realized he was scared of the word "oops" I know it is crazy. Thankfully he is over all this. He still has a little sound sensitivity...but thankfully nothing like that.

He's 7 so I don't know if that makes a difference.

When dd2.5 was about 1 or so she crawled into ds's sleeping tent he had at the time and found that he had strung up a fake spider web and spider. This was a real shock - for the next couple of weeks everything was 'scawy spider' this and 'scawy spider' that. She was freaked! Scared. It was just too much for her little self, but eventually she got over it.
Sounds similar...how old is your ds?

7. Well that is tough, does he have anything else that he has ever reacted to like that? Does he look genuinely scared? I can tell when my DS is suddenly terrified of something. Of course he is 4 and can't quite fake it yet.

I think it's probably a relatively normal reaction to something creepy like that. I'm guessing he'll probably relate that to anything that might have a squishy component, for awhile anyway. I have a friend who bit into a maggot-filled reeses PB cup, and had to cut every food open for the longest time. She still won't eat PB cups of any sort. Good luck. Sorry I don't have any helpful advice.

The movie Jaws came out when I was 10. I was too young to see it, but that didn't stop me (and all my friends) from being petrified of any body of water - lakes, pools, bathtubs.

If that little cockroach-filled squeeze ball was designed to freak people out then maybe it was just well designed.

I wonder if you could cut the ball to pieces to show it's just a toy with pretend cockroahes and desensitize your DS.

Oh, and don't let your son see Enchanted if he hasn't already, because there's a scene where the princess gets help cleaning up the apartment from regular NYC residents (rats, pigeons, cockroaches).

Your poor son. I am 38 and that would creep me out! I have always had this fear of cockroaches probably b/c I grew up in an old pier and beam house and we have those huge ones around here. If one appeared on a wall or on the floor I would freak out and even though my mom would dispose of it, I was sure it was coming back to life and crawl all over me while I slept. Even today I can not deal with roaches or spiders for that matter. So maybe I am gullible but by what you described of his reaction to the ball it sounds like genuine fear. As for how to over come it? That is a hard one and I think the idea of cutting open the ball and showing him the toys fits under the mentality of facing your fears but do be careful that just might backfire on you and now you let them free. I think the best thing is to not make a big deal out of it and feed into his fears almost ignoring it and if he is acting he will soon get bored.

He is genuinely either terrified or freaked out by the ball itself. He was looking at his wildlife book this morning and maybe seeing a picture of the cockroaches was enough to set him off. It has persisted all day. He still wouldn't brush his teeth tonight. I'll have to think about cutting the ball open. It might help or it might make it worse.

My 16 year old neice gave it to him. I'm sure she thought that being a boy he'd think it was cool. Thanks. I just didn't know what to think.